World War 2 Spitfire pilot sees footage of his crash for the first time.

rags747

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Very cool story, will pass it around. Great stuff...Thx.
 

Phrozen Phil

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What a terrific story. To fly that kind of mission, he'd have to be a very disciplined pilot, not to mention brave. Imagine flying an unarmed aircraft into hostile territory on a regular (50+ times!) basis. I really enjoyed watching him get excited when he saw his crash-landing for the first time. He certainly seems to be a class A gentleman and an all round good guy. I have to laugh when he said "get that cigarette out of your mouth". Thanks for sharing this.:)
 

ABQCOWBOY

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That was a treat. It takes me back to many an hour spent with my own Grandfather, talking about when he was a young man in WWII. He was not a pilot but the stories were amazing, just the same. Thank you very much for posting that.

:)
 

WPBCowboysFan

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Really cool story.

My father-n-law had the print of this painting hanging in his office. I thot it was so cool I had to get one as well.

1291517_1_l.jpg
 

arglebargle

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Good find! And a nice story to boot. Thanks!

Apparantly the Spitfires were great flyers; was reading an account of an American squadron in Italy that had their reverse lendlease Spitfires switched out to P51s. They were not happy about the change.

My father flew bombers in WWII, B24s in the South Pacific. Mostly bombing Indonesian oil fields, the Philipines, running anti-shipping patrols. I asked once what the most nerve wracking part of it was for him. He felt that the bomb runs themselves were so busy, that they didn't have time to worry much. But because his B24 had the best gas mileage in the squadron, they were the plane that got to circle around any of the other bombers that had to ditch, waiting for the PBY Catalinas to come in to rescue the downed crews. That was the worst.
 

Phrozen Phil

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arglebargle;5092740 said:
Good find! And a nice story to boot. Thanks!

Apparantly the Spitfires were great flyers; was reading an account of an American squadron in Italy that had their reverse lendlease Spitfires switched out to P51s. They were not happy about the change.

My father flew bombers in WWII, B24s in the South Pacific. Mostly bombing Indonesian oil fields, the Philipines, running anti-shipping patrols. I asked once what the most nerve wracking part of it was for him. He felt that the bomb runs themselves were so busy, that they didn't have time to worry much. But because his B24 had the best gas mileage in the squadron, they were the plane that got to circle around any of the other bombers that had to ditch, waiting for the PBY Catalinas to come in to rescue the downed crews. That was the worst.

My father-in-law was an aircraft mechanic and got to work on a host of planes in the war. He introduced me to a pilot who flew a variety of planes, including some captured German planes. He told me that the spitfire could turn inside of any German plane, but the ME109 could climb incredibly quickly. The Spitfires were wonderful in a dogfight becuse of their tight turning radius and Rolls-Royce Engine, but he was effusive of his praise of the P-51. It was a relatively late arrival in the European theater, so it was less known to a lot of pilots.

He stated that it was the creme-de-la-creme interms of technology and it was an absolute joy to fly. He didn't like pitting one off against the other, but he felt that the Mustang was the top of the evolutionary pile of prop-driven planes. It is interesting that there are still a fair number of P-51's still flying today. My Father-in-law mourned the Hurricane, which was the backbone of the RAF during the Battle of Britain. There are almost no Hurricanes left intact, and not a lot of Spitfires preserved.
 
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